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Given this set-up, the movie than falls into all manner of predictability as it careens from one frantic action sequence to another. Oddly, it slows down later and loses what little humor and charm it had and sticks to a rather boring, almost Mission: Impossible-like plot. This essentially kills what little goodwill the movie had built up with the audience.

Much has been written about the failure of Knight and Day. It opened with a disappointing total of $20.5 million for the weekend. This was Tom Cruise's worst opening, in a lead role, since 1992's Far and Away, which took in just under $13 million. The blame, however, seems to have very publicly fallen on the ad campaign. In a very public discussion, Tony Sella, the Co-President of Fox Marketing, explained that the marketing was aimed at the over 40 audience who would most identify with its aging stars. "If you're over 40, this movie was a rock star - the whole concept, the Nick and Nora of it all. It's a grown up film. That was the whole theory behind selling the film, that it was a cool, adult movie, hence the poster and the graphics behind it. We wouldn't have called it Knight and Day if we weren't going for an adult audience," he commented. But as tracking came back, they changed the mood of the promotion and began marketing it as a much more standard action film. The release date was moved up from a standard Friday release of June 25th to a much more unusual Wednesday June 23rd date, perhaps in hopes of building up a good word-of-mouth (based on the tracking this seems to have been a desperate, last ditch move).

Knight and Day was never a movie that was going to succeed no matter who starred in it. The flaws are not in the acting, as Diaz and Cruise gamely trudge through the laborious and unoriginal writing, but in the well-worn plot. Still, one wonders why their staffs allowed themselves to be attached to the project in the first place. I cannot imagine the various scripts ever had a pulse. From the Pink Panther movies to Austin Powers, the spy genre has been mined countless times for laughs and in a much better fashion.

In keeping with a time of day theme, Caroline and I saw and thought we'd throw in a little bit about The Twilight Saga: Eclipse as well.

Being part of a couple, both Caroline and I realize that we sometimes have to go and do things we normally wouldn't do because it makes the other one happy. I'm not someone who hates the series but I admit to be baffled by its appeal. The Twilight Saga: Eclipse is exactly what you expect and those expectations differ wildly depending on your gender. Caroline has quoted another fan of the series as saying, "It helps if you are a 14-year-old girl or ever were a 14-year-old girl". Being a part of neither of those demographics and having now seen two of these movies, I find it an interesting exercise in gender differences.

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